Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Camino Chronicle could use a few more good reviews

You may have wondered about my blog name "This Makes No Sense At All". It came about because one of the things we have always loved about hiking is the consistently wonderful community of hikers, when we meet them on the trail. No matter what their circumstances in the real world, on the trail they are without exception, friendly and go out of their way to be helpful.

When we got more interested in long distance hiking, and I started following the related hiking online forums, I discovered that this spirit prevailed, but that there was also more than expected angry divisive commentary. It was this that made no sense at all. I could not match it with the people I met on the trail.

Last fall when we noticed that our sales of Camino Chronicle abruptly dropped by two thirds, we did some checking and saw that a couple had bought a copy from Amazon, and then posted two very negative one star reviews. Since we didn't have a lot of reviews to begin with, that had a drastic effect. I don't really quarrel with their not liking Susan's journal writing style - some do, some don't. It is just that they seemed so angry about it. This is a non fiction book. The facts are what they are. The scope of information is substantial and took a long time to gather and organize. A one star review is the equivalent of a letter grade of F, and inappropriate. They are hiking the Camino this spring, and maybe when they come back they will have the hiker spirit and revise their review, but I am not hopeful.

Over the years, many people have told us that they liked the book. We didn't think to respond: "Thanks, an Amazon review would be helpful". If you are one of those people, this is your opportunity!

3 comments:

You are so incredibly spot on here!! There is some strange thing that seems to compel people to complain and write about things they perceive as wrong. Yet by some weird twist...the converse seems to never happen. We may give something word of mouth to our friends, but how often do we take the time to give an atta boy to anyone, be it a blogger an author or a company who made a product we love! Thanks for the reminder to do just that!

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